


Belonging

by EllieCarina



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, One-Shot, Spoiler fic, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, That Trailer, The Last Jedi - Freeform, Theory Fic, post reylo-team-up, speculation fic, the hand moment (TM), tlj - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 11:23:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12364689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieCarina/pseuds/EllieCarina
Summary: What happens after Rey takes his hand.





	Belonging

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers from the trailer of The Last Jedi. (That hand scene, you know.) Pure speculation after that. Just a short little something-something I had to get out of my system. // One-Shot. Un-Beta'd.

_What am I doing?_ Rey thinks, her body flushing hot. _Skies, what am I doing here?_

It’s the first time she has a second to think straight after the commotion, the torture, the deathly peril of it all and it hits her like a brick. It should be so quiet after all those explosions but she hears her blood rush through her head as if it was a wild desert storm. At the same time the sudden lack of mortal danger, fire and panic is giving her whiplash. She was just fighting for her life, just scrambling to get away, just caught in that strange moment where everything went silent and Kylo Ren held out his hand and she took it. Why did she take it? It doesn’t make sense. He is her enemy. He’s evil, unhinged and arguably insane. He killed his father. But he had saved her. Just a few minutes ago. They feel like a lifetime now and yet like a heartbeat at the same time.

Rey trembles at the all too fresh memory of Snoke picking apart the fringes of her consciousness, trying and succeeding at twisting his way into her mind. Having Kylo probe her for the map on Starkiller Base was nothing. She knows that now by comparison. He had been gentle with her, really. Snoke had been anything but. Yet as things are, she must not dwell on what the creature had made her see and feel or she’ll start screaming and will never stop. There’s no telling how long she could have lasted under that terrible torment, no way to know when she would have broken into a million pieces with no hope of survival. The only thing she is sure of, is that she would have cracked eventually, like an old fruit tossed on the ground, she would have burst open and spilled everything she was. Had it not been for Kylo Ren.

He had saved her by taking on the monster that was his master and somehow managed to distract him long enough for Rey to gather her wits and call her lightsaber from his hand to hers and fight. And fight, they did, side to side and back to back. Away from the monster, away from his guards, cutting them down one by one. And then amidst the _Supremacy_ catching fire, Kylo had offered his hand, like he had a lifetime ago on Starkiller, but this time she took it.

This is how she wound up in a nondescript First Order shuttle with him, sitting frozen on the co-pilot’s chair while he thumbs away on the controls, steering them out of the hanger bay. He is focused on the machine with a single-mindedness that is almost eerie. She practically feels it buzzing through him, making him radiate sharp and harsh concentration. Her energy must seem fluttering and wild next to his and she wonders if he can sense her the way she does him.

“A little help here?” He barks, which answers that question.

She scrambles to the board and flicks on the switches, levers and buttons that need flicking and not a second too late, for just as they lift off, three TIE fighters blast off after them in strong pursuit.

“I got this,” Rey yells and takes charge of the guns, hitting everything she can fast and hard while Kylo does his damndest to keep outmaneuvering the faster and lighter TIEs.

They’re back again, the blasts and _pew_ ’s and the many imminent ways she could die, so Rey switches back into survival mode and tucks at the Force to guide her and grant her some grace. A second later, the first one of the TIEs makes an unfortunate turn, right into her line of fire, and it tears away its entire left side. At least the Force still works for her.

“We need to make the jump and get away quick!” Kylo tells her what she already knows. “Just get them off our track!”

“I’m trying,” she yells, fires and the second ship is missing half a wing.

Still, the other two are on their back and undoubtedly locked on to their shuttle; if they switch to hyperdrive, the TIEs will follow and after them, Snoke.

If only there was a way to shake them faster than attempting to out-fly them.

“The cargo bay!” Rey shouts and when Kylo doesn’t immediately catch on, she yells louder. “The cargo bay _door_ , Kylo! Open it!”

He does, pushing a button that releases the contents of the shuttle’s cargo hold onto their pursuers and while they try to get out of the way, Rey shouts again and Kylo responds, hitting the hyperdrive so quickly, the movement is just a rapid blur from the corner of her eye. Next thing she knows, they’re darting at light speed through space, with Kylo bringing up navigation to get them somewhere remote, definitely the Outer Rim but not a quadrant she’s familiar with going from the names on the chart. She wonders for a split second if she has ever called him by name before. But there are more pressing matters to attend to.

“Where are we going?” She asks, heart still racing and cheeks pulsing with adrenaline.

“I don’t know,” Kylo admits and checks the radar. “Snoke will find us anywhere before long but at least we’ve lost the TIEs.”

“So what do we do?” Rey knows there’s not much they _can_ do but she needs to keep talking to keep from thinking too hard again, now that they’re out of immediate danger.

“We have to lay low somewhere, get a new ship. Come up with a plan,” Kylo says.

More things she already knows. “Where do we do that?”

“I have an idea.” Kylo says and his face darkens. She feels it before she see’s it, too. “It’s not a very good one.”

“Well?”

“My grandfather’s castle,” he says under his breath.

“ _What?_ ” He can’t be serious.

“I know,” he begrudges. “But it’s mine and no one but me has been there in years. There’s a couple of shuttles, some old enough to pass for a junk ship and there's provisions. And weapons.”

“But won’t that be the first–,” Rey starts and Kylo cuts in instantaneously.

“The first place Snoke might come looking, yes,” Kylo says. “But he won’t think I would go there. He will send scouts out anyway, of course. We’ll have a day at best.”

“Where is it?”

“Mustafar,” he answers. “The Outer Rim South.”

“Mustafar,” Rey repeats. “I’ve heard of that from traders at Nima Outpost, they said it’s a bad place.”

“The dark side is strong there,” Kylo says with no connotation and his feelings give nothing away.

Rey half expects to feel some wicked joy to emanate from him at the prospect but there is nothing. Which is somehow even more worrisome.

“If this is a trick–”

“To do what?” Kylo huffs. “Where you not there just then? I turned on Lord Snoke. I can never go back to the First Order. I have nothing now. I have no reason to trick you. The only way I’ll survive is with you. The only way _we’ll_ survive is together.”

 _He does have a point_ , Rey concedes and relaxes, if only marginally, and if only for a second. Because in the next, while Kylo is setting course for Mustafar, she starts thinking again.

_What am I doing here? Skies, whatever am I doing?_

She has no idea. But what else could she have done? Gone back to the Resistance? They can’t help her, they wouldn’t understand. And she wouldn’t want to paint a Rey-sized target on their back either, an extra incentive for Snoke to try and eradicate them even faster. maybe she could have tried to make her way back to Luke. But then again, the old Jedi had made it abundantly clear that she frightened him, that he rather had not trained her at all; that he’d rather have had her sitting on Jakku sad, lonely and abandoned, a nobody, until the end of her days. So what good could Luke do for her now?

No, Kylo is right. There’s no way for them but forward, on their own, to fight their own battle. It’s strange how this all happened in a day, how _before_ , she was Rey from the Resistance and he was Kylo Ren from the First Order and now they’re none of these things anymore. They are just... _them_. How odd.

 _We’re a ‘we’ now_ , Rey thinks and it feels peculiar. Not bad, although she thinks it maybe should. But really, it just feels inevitable. Like now that she finds herself in this spot with him, there was never another way this could have gone. And there’s some solace in that. Some _belonging_. It doesn't make sense and she is hyper aware of the fact that her guard must remain up at all times, faced with Kylo Ren's unpredictable temper and darkly flowing energy. But where there should be the urge to turn the ship around and get away for him, or better, get out her lightsaber and have it out with him, once and for all, there's just a wary acceptance. Of course it's them together now - two outcasts at the end of the galaxy with no clear cut allegiances, trying to figure out how to live through another day.

“Thank you,” she says then, because she ought to. “For saving my life.”

He turns his head to her and she turns to him too, looking at him fully the first time since she took his hand back on the _Supremacy_. He has the same look in his eyes now that he had then. The one that makes her stomach dip just a bit, her breath catch just a fraction and her heart kind of flutter in just that way that worries her. But she can’t bring herself to look away.

“I have a feeling you’ll get the chance to get even for that very soon,” he says softly, looks away then back at her again and adds quietly: “You’re welcome.” And then, after he swallows hard. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again. I promise.”

This time, Rey takes his hand without having been offered it. But it’s surprisingly easy. Easier than saying anything, anyway. Because whatever is she supposed to say to that? She can’t. Her heart beats too loud to find the words. Because her world has just turned on its head.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please leave kudos or a comment. If feeds my soul and waters my crops, clears my skin and makes me believe in people again. Thank you all <3


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